


Jailbreak

by Silverheart



Series: Forged in Light [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Gen, Lore - Freeform, mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-05-27 10:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6280741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheart/pseuds/Silverheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hive has conquered species for millennia, blotting them from existence, eradicating all they had built. Yet some kept secrets from Oryx, secrets the Taken King is sworn to learn, and so he has kept a prison.</p><p>New intelligence has pointed the Vanguard towards one of the prisoners who could be able to help them in this long war. A specially selected fireteam has been sent to free the prisoner from the Dreadnaught, where he is guarded by the vast, mysterious Warden of the Hive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I don’t recognize any of you,” the Exo woman said as she entered the Hall of Guardians. She was definitely a warlock, clad in the eye-aching green and blue of the Crucible.

Temper rubbed at his eyes and realized who she was. “You’re Belle-24, the Crucible champion.”

She nodded and began pacing, glancing at the other two all with a dismissive red gaze one more time. Temper didn’t blame her. He wasn’t much for the Crucible, and he was pretty sure the black masked Hunter didn’t spend much time among civilization. Rumor held it that Belle-24 hadn’t been on patrol since she’d first got to the Tower. 

What did the Vanguard mean by calling them all together? They usually didn’t involve themselves directly in Fireteam organization. 

Temper didn’t like this. He didn’t like getting his leash pulled, he didn’t like pausing in his hunt across the Cosmodrome for the Kings, he didn’t like leaving Amara to that task on her own. He really didn’t like the cold feeling crawling up and down his spine since he’d received the summons from Commander Zavala.

“Well, well,” Cayde-6 said, walking into the room, “Avengers assemble.” His metallic brows furrowed. “Ah, sorry.” He knocked on his head with one fist. “Not sure where that came from. Sorry for the late hour. We had to verify some details.” He turned to look over his shoulder as he took his place at the long table. “And I’ll turn it over to Ikora and Zavala, for dramatic effect.”

Ikora Rey followed in on his heels, looking patiently annoyed, Zavala right behind her with much less patience. She summoned her Ghost, which interfaced with the projector on the table. “You’ll appreciate the delay.”

Zavala nodded. “Very much. A lot of planning has gone into this operation. I know this outside the norm for all of you, but we specifically selected you for this task for good reasons.” Temper waited for him to explain those reasons, but no such luck. Typical Vanguard.

The all too common image of the Dreadnought popped up. Temper leaned away. He’d lost good friends on that ship during the push to Oryx. He’d managed to dodge having to board it. “We have continued to explore the Dreadnaught,” Ikora said, “Even with Oryx dead, it has held onto many secrets, some of which could doom us all. On occasion, though, we think we may find one that can help us.” She glanced around to make sure they were all paying attention. “While attempting to secure a new battleground for the Crucible—” that perked Belle up— “the Redjacks found data indicating that, beyond just Taking and slaughtering thousands of species over the millennia, Oryx kept some of them as prisoners.”

The Hunter shrugged. “I’ve been to his prison,” he said in a harsh gravelly voice, “Scoured the Sunless Cell clean. Just Hive and Taken to be found.”

Zavala bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Yes, Maarku, all true. Many have patrolled the prison halls and only found hostiles, so we assumed it was a prison for rebels or ritual sacrifices. The information the Redjacks found states otherwise. It points us towards a set of cells even deeper in the prison, more well-guarded, where the last members of other species are kept and tortured.”

“They found a list of names,” Ikora continued, “and what is best described as cell numbers.” The image of the Dreadnaught began to slough away, layer by layer, until only a particular set of halls remained. The hologram magnified to reveal immense detail. “We want you to focus on trying to free a particular prisoner, who we are moderately certain is an ally.”

Moderately certain? His thoughts must have been written all over his face because Cayde coughed, as if clearing his throat. “We were with the Speaker making sure this isn’t some elaborate trap, as best we can, anyway. There’s a prisoner called the Akllabeth, Talon of the Taishibethi. The Speaker has found references to the Taishibethi in other records, so we’re not making an entirely blind guess.” He jabbed a finger towards a level high up in the prison. “His cell is up here.”

“From what I can gather, the cells are heavily warded,” Ikora said. She nodded to Belle. “I have read your writing on such Dark wards—few would use the Crucible as a sabbatical, but it has clearly worked wonders in your case, Belle-24. This will be your chance to test your theories in the field.”

“And possibly be killed,” Belle told her.

“Consider it a different kind of contest.”

Belle shrugged. 

“They are also heavily guarded,” Zavala said. A giant floating Hive ship appeared floating in the center of the area. “Beyond the usual denizens of the Dreadnaught, there is the Warden.”

“A ship?” Temper asked, peering at the inverted T-shape.

“It looks that way. No guarantees on the Dreadnought, of course,” Cayde said, “It hasn’t taken any interest in Guardians before, but it’s clearly patrolling the prison. Whether it remains passive or turns hostile once you get close to our Taishibethi should be an interesting learning experience.”

“Right.” Temper leaned back from the hologram.

Cayde clapped him on the shoulder. “Listen, we know this mission has a lot of unknowns. But if there are beings of the Light in that prison, captured and tortured by Oryx, we can’t just leave them like that.”

“They could be powerful allies,” Zavala added, “And they may well know things about the Darkness we can’t even begin to guess at.”

“Maybe,” Belle said, staring intently at the hologram.

“My question is why would Oryx keep anything of the Light alive, then?” Temper asked, “The Hive get more powerful the more they kill. I’ve done some reading—”

“He _is_ a bookish Titan,” Cayde said wonderingly. 

Temper glanced at him warily. “I’ve done some reading on the Hive lore we’ve just learned, and it’s widely thought they must keep killing to even stay alive.”

“Even truer than that,” Ikora told him enigmatically, “And that is a good question. The only thing that makes any sense is that these beings know something Oryx wanted to know. Something that we, also, will want to know.”

Cayde clapped his hands together. “So unless you have any more questions we can’t answer, let’s get this thing started. We’ll transmit the cell coordinates to your Ghosts as soon as you land.”

Belle cocked her golden head. “Not now?”

“I want to be certain my understanding is as accurate as possible,” Ikora said.

That cold creeping sensation Temper had been feeling seemed to get worse.


	2. Chapter 2

“The Dreadnaught?” Amara asked over the radio.

Temper could imagine her platinum eyebrows raising in surprise. Those friends he’d lost had been hers, too, so she had the same aversion to the ship he did. “I’m not going to gainsay the Vanguard.”

Amara chuckled, most of it lost in interference. The Fireteam was about to drop out of warp, which played havoc with comms. “Well, don’t get the Crucible champ killed. Her fans might kill you, amber-eyes.”

Temper grinned. “Love you, too. Be safe on the hunt.”

The transmission cut out. Temper sighed and switched to team chat. “I’m tracking we’re going to come in pretty close.”

“Transmat zone’s pretty narrow,” Maarku said, “Granted the place is crawling with Guardian patrols, but we don’t want to risk giving too much warning to this Warden, either.”

“We should just shoot it to be safe,” Belle said.

Weren’t Warlocks supposed to be the calm ones? Temper shook his head. “If it’s not going to fire death rays at us on sight, I don’t want to provoke it into firing death rays at us.”

Maarku grunted. “Seconded.”

“I bow to superior patrolling experience.”

“Do that and we’ll leave the wards to you.”

“Smart move.” She had to be the only Exo who actually acted like a robot.

“Dropping out of warp in three, two, one… _now_!”

His ship came to a jarring halt, assorted flaps flaring and thrusters firing to slow its momentum as it made the transition to normal space. Temper gritted his teeth as it slowed to a manageable speed and then had the chance to see the deathtrap in its full glory, looming outside his cockpit.

It was _massive_. It shouldn’t have dwarfed glorious Saturn or its wounded rings, yet something about it did. There was something about the Dreadnaught that threw off Temper’s idea of the universe’s scale, like an injury to his inner ear.

He didn’t want to imagine what the Awoken fleet had felt when the thing was still active and capable of killing. It floated in the hollow it had carved out of Saturn like a dead thing, both simple and complexly alien in shape. Shadow and distant sunlight fell on its too-still hull in abstract, disturbing patterns.

The debris of the battle with the Awoken littered the area still. This was a place of the dead, Temper could feel it, more than any other Hive hole he’d ever ventured into. The sense of Darkness seemed to tangible drift by in tattered nasty tendrils.

“Biggest, ugliest monument in a graveyard,” Maarku commented, “Just like that bastard Oryx. Arrogant ass.”

Temper’s Ghost manifested herself, tucking herself between his neck and his shoulder, one spike jammed against his jaw. He’d found it annoying, at first, but now Yori’s cool shell, dancing with light and Light, was a profound comfort.

It might help that the Crimson Shell had been a gift from a victorious Amara during the recent holiday tournament. 

“Transmat Zone within range,” Yori told him in her soft voice. She twitched slightly. “I don’t like this.”

“You don’t like it whenever we make the Tower approach.”

“And so I _really_ don’t like this.”

He shrugged the shoulder she wasn’t resting on. “To be honest, neither do I. Helmet.”

The physical feel of Yori vanished and the world grew more closed as the helmet transmatted around his head. For all he’d lived in the thing for weeks at a time, the initial sensation was always strange. He knew it was a necessity, not a natural state. 

“Ready?” Belle asked.

Temper nodded for no real reason like an idiot and engaged autopilot. The ship would drift at minimum power above the debris field until Yori called it back in. “Ready.”

“Ready,” Maarku said.

Yori vanished, and shortly after, so did Temper. 

Temper came to in the process of dropping three feet onto a surface that was about fifty different kinds of wrong.

Everything about the shapes and the sounds and somehow the even the filtered atmosphere in his helmet was _wrong, wrong, wrong_.

Someone clapped him on the shoulder, making him jump and swing his rifle around. Maarku chuckled over the voice channel, gently shoving the muzzle away. “Easy. It gets to you at first.” 

Belle stepped forward, hand cannon at the ready. “The shapes are ritualized.” She cocked her head. “Amazing. The whole ship is a spell.” She walked up to the nearest support strut, looming like a great spar of bone, and rested hand against it. Her Ghost manifested and began a scan.

“Well, it gets to most people,” Maarku said. He waved a hand forward. “I don’t doubt the Hive know we’re here, so let’s not make ourselves sitting targets.”

“Right.” He turned his head, looking for the coordinate marker his Ghost had projected onto his HUD. “This way, then.” He eyed the distance Yori threw up under the marker. “A long way this way.”

Maarku shrugged and started moving ahead of them. “Always is.”

With every step further into the Dreadnaught the sense of wrongness increased. Temper winced with his first few steps. The surface beneath his feet was defiantly solid and very hard, but it had a strange kind of give to it that made his stomach lurch a bit.

The tatters of Darkness seemed to get denser as they moved away from the transmat zone. Growths of bony something blotted the walls. It was all the Hive infestations at the Comsodrome, only fully realized.

“First time here, huh?”Maarku asked, as he led them down what seemed like a dead end.

“I’ve been hunting the Kings across the Cosmodrome since I became a Guardian.”

“Ah. Remember this about the Dreadnaught: it’s only a skeleton. Bit by bit, we’ve torn the life out of it.”

“Indeed?” Belle asked, “Well, it’s a formidable ghost, then. I read the reports that two Fireteams were killed in it this past month.”

Maarku looked over at Temper. “Let us hope no one ever promotes Belle-24 to the Vanguard.”

Temper nodded. “’You’re probably going to die’ isn’t a good way to end a mission brief.”

“The truth is unavoidable,” the Exo retorted. Temper wondered if that was supposed to be a joke or a statement. He couldn’t tell from the tone. She stopped in her tracks, starng at a chasm. “We are at a dead end.”

“Situational awareness around here is your friend,” Maarku said, walking down the platform, “Here’s trick.”

He leapt out into the void.

Temper tensed, reaching out instinctively. Belle froze in place.

And Maarku landed soundly on a bridge that resolved out of nothing, one end manifesting right at Temper’s feet.

He chuckled. “You’ll get used to it.”

Temper tested the bridge, seemed solid enough, if wrong still, though in a different way. Okay, then. He shrugged, then moved forward. Belle bounced on ahead of him, flickering in and out as Warlocks do.

As he reached the other end, the shreds of Darkness felt more aware, in the way a fading thing does, more vicious. “Anyone else feel that?” he asked.

“Keep it down,” Maarku snapped, “We’re coming into the real warrens. And we’ll have to brush up next to the Dantalion, from the looks of it.”

They fell into a wedge formation, spacing out where they could, weapons and Light at the ready. The feeling they were being watched began to set in. Not actively, and it was a broken weary thing, but they watched nonetheless, with deep malice. 

Temper wished Amara was there, but at the same time didn’t.

The corridors were a mix of jagged teeth and sheer walls, not a structure but a…a hive, a thing deliberately accumulated. 

Thrall screamed suddenly, but Maarku finished them off in one shot each with his hand cannon.

He didn’t say anything, just nodded, and kept leading them forward, onward to another chasm with its vanishing bridges, and more Thrall. The path turned to rotting caves and the feel of old secrets. They passed what looked like blown out installations, destroyed by Guardians in the early days of the campaign against Oryx.

“There’s only Thrall,” Temper said, smashing one’s head in, leaving it to fade to dust. There had only been five in that group.

Belle shrugged. “There’s nothing to guard, here.”

Maarku shouldered his rifle as they broke out into an open space. “Wait ‘til we get to the Dantalion.”

A blast of rotting starfire tore between Maarku and Temper. Belle bolted to a cover. “Or we could come to here.”

Temper followed hard on her heels out of instinct. The sick feel of this place, the tattered Darkness all around, the bizarreness of the surface under his boots, it all faded away.

He returned fire around the pillar, his trusty rifle chewing at their shields. Great. High ranking Knights. Usually they accompanied…

The shrieking confirmed his suspicions.

“Apprentice Deathsinger,” Belle muttered, “Can’t kill us through song.” She tossed a grenade around the other side of the pillar. “She can however kill us in the usual ways.”

Temper ducked back into cover as the Wizard appeared and aimed for his head. Her blasts shook the pillar as it hit them. “Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Something in the very atmosphere shifted. Temper snatched Belle’s arm and yanked her backwards on pure instinct as a vicious spike shot up through the floor where she’d been standing. 

Belle pulled him after her as the pillar erupted in a cluster of spikes. 

Temper grit his teeth and fired his entire clip into the Wizard’s shields, backing up. His bullets didn’t touch her, but they got her to back off for a few moments.

Maarku dashed past, his knife cutting through Acolytes and Thrall. His Arc Blade vanished and he sheathed his knife. “It’s summoning those spikes,” he growled, firing his scout rifle into a Knight.

Belle’s green and blue Ghost flickered into existence and went to scan the spikes on their erstwhile cover, rounds flickering all around. Not one of the more nervous Ghosts, then. Yori wouldn’t moved from his side under the fire.

The spikes on the pillar vanished abruptly, like the bridges across the chasm had. Belle’s Ghost jerked backwards and vanished. 

“Stay away from the walls,” Belle said, “She’s altering the structure—but she can’t hold the changes long.” She hummed musingly, firing away all the while. The Wizard kept ducking behind cover—or summoning it, calling up giant twisted clusters of spikes with a particularly high-pitched shriek. “Oryx’s power here must be breaking down. Otherwise the structure would be too solid.”

“Useful academia _only_ during firefights, please,” Maarku said.

The Exo’s head turned towards him. “Tear down her shields, kill her. The shooting and spikes will stop.”

Maarku grunted and swapped to his sniper rifle. They all danced backwards as another set of spikes appeared where they were standing. “Once her guards are gone, she’ll have to come out to play with us.”

“Solar works for Dreadnaught Wizards, too?” Temper asked. 

“Mostly.” The Hunter took aim and fired. “Damn, she’s calling cover for those ranking Knights of hers.”

“Then we do this the Titan way.” If Amara had heard that, she’d have shot him. He pulled out his shotgun. “I charge in and pull them out, you take them out. Belle, can you keep the Wizard off my back when she makes her last stand?”

“She’s going to impale you before you get to them.”

“Can you?”

“Of course.”

He shouldered good old Invective for comfort’s sake and double-checked his ammo count on his HUD. “Here goes, then.”

He charged forward, leaping around spikes as they burst from the floor. The vague give in the floor made it feel like he was bouncing, every step requiring dimly less force as he twisted around the attempts to kill him.

A single Thrall leapt from behind a spike, screaming, and Temper’s solar-powered fist burned it to nothing. The impact from the Knights’ fire slammed into his shields and all around. He spotted the nearest one and veered for it, preparing to take aim. 

A column of spikes burst into existence in front of him, prompting him into a powered jump. The Knight below looked at him as he fell, hissing what must be curses.

Temper took aim and fired, dropping the Knight’s shield, then slammed into the Hive creature’s body, sending its weapon flying.

It reached up, digging its claws into his forearm armor, as if trying to tear it off.

He fired a shell into its skull, turning it into a pile of ash and armor. 

Another series of cursing hisses alerted him to the other Knight’s presence. It squalled at him, taking aim as he turned to it.

A sniper shot rang out, and the Knight turned to ash.

“Run!” Belle shouted across the team channel.

Temper kicked himself backwards. He felt the shift as the spikes broke into existence at his back. He thrashed, twisting awkwardly midair, managing to land on top of a spike.

The Wizard rose up to face him, her ugly face twisting into a grin, and too far to hit her decently.

Not really where he wanted to be…

Belle glided in suddenly and slammed a kick into the Wizard, knocking her backwards.

Maarku bounded to his side, firing on the Wizard as Belle began zapping her with lightning. 

“So we say ‘solar will do knock her shields down real good’,” Maarku commented, reloading, “And then she decides to be all Stormcaller about it.”

Temper took up his rifle again and began firing. “It is working.” That shifting feeling returned. “Time to jump, I think.”

They both leapt down to where Belle had resorted to blasting at the Wizard. The Warlock jumped backwards as the Wizard dumped poison on the area. All three of them unloaded fire into the Wizard, dancing and bounding around spikes and blasts.

With a last cussing sound of shriek, the Wizard dissolved into ash, her spikes vanishing.

The three of them lowered their weapons slowly. Temper’s breath resounded almost deafeningly in his helmet. He _hated_ fighting the Hive.

Maarku sighed loudly. “Well, that was new. Let’s go do this.”

Belle nodded. “I’m sending a report on that to the Vanguard.” She moved to take point, Maarku on her tail, heading for the marker further in the Dreadnaught.

Temper rolled his shoulders and eyed the now calm chamber. This wasn’t going to get any better, was it?

Well, that’s why he was immortal. He followed the other two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to do a few experimental things here, among them integrating game mechanics and interesting writing, while doing something different than the scenarios we all know, which is hard.


	3. Chapter 3

They emerged into what Temper could only describe as a wasteland.

The place where the Dantalion had crashed was a wound. It was far from a level battlefield, but a jagged one. 

Maarku stepped ahead. "Hasn't calmed down since I was last here." He gave a dark chuckle. "Wonder which is more desperate, the Hive or the Cabal."

The other two followed. Hive shrieked and Cabal bellowed, both firing weapons. A few Thrall leapt out from behind a broken spar, easily dealt with knife, fist, and blast. If they had been capable of it, Temper imagined they would have been more surprised than the fireteam.

Guardians weren't the Hive's primary enemy here. 

They skirted the battle, close enough that Temper could feel the thumps of a Colossus' rounds through his boots. Cabal began surging forward, taking positions and forcing the Hive back, but Temper had no idea what they hoped to achieve long term besides surviving another moment. This ship was the most Hive place in the universe. The Cabal couldn't take it.

Maarku held up a fist suddenly, then signaled for them to hide. The fireteam tucked themselves behind a spar as an Ogre stalked forward, predatory and twisted. Temper held his breath, his entire body tensing. He'd never seen one so close before. It seemed more like a construct of flesh, a product of mad science, than a true life form.

It moved past them, Maarku gingerly moving out of cover to watch it go for the Cabal. He nodded decidedly and moved forward towards a gouged-out trench dangerously close to the thick of the fighting. A legionnaire popped off a few shots at them, but the roar of the ogre pulled its attention away.

They dropped down and found themselves very suddenly off the battlefield and in another semi-organic tunnel. Maarku shook himself and rolled his shoulders. "I don't like getting in the middle of that. Worse than the Vex-Cabal back and forth on Mars."

"The Cabal can't win," Belle said.

"Yet they hold their own," Maarku told her, leading them forward, "Which is undeniably a sign of something. What, I don't know."

Belle shook her head and outpaced him, possibly annoyed, likely just focused.

The marker on Temper's HUD was closer, but not by much. And it was very much upwards of their current position. "We still have a ways to go."

Maarku grunted an affirmative. "Let's avoid patrols and save ammo, Belle."

She paused. "I'd rather not." Crucible bloodlust, Temper thought. 

"If this Warden is what I've seen in area ahead," Maarku said, "I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"I defer to your expertise."

They slipped out of the tunnel and into what had to be the prison. It was all spikes and chains and coffin-like cells dangling over open drops to another floor. The place had many levels and seemingly zero logic. It felt almost like a storage area, a back room. 

Something growled in one of the bigger cells as Temper passed it. A ogre, caged for some purpose. It followed them with its grotesque head as they moved past it, but issued no battle cry. It seemed bizarrely scared from what Temper could see of it between its close set bony bars.

Belle crouched at one of the openings to the lower level. A patrol of Acolytes wandered past. Once they had been gone a solid minute, Belle dropped down, followed by Temper and Maarku.

They moved quickly and silently in the direction indicate don their HUDs, pausing occasionally to hide between cells, some ruined and torn open, others whole yet empty. Waiting.

The tatters of Darkness intensified as they pushed forward. Temper grit his teeth inside his helmet, thinking of sunlight upon the steppe flowers and the City's vibrant nighttime activity. Opposite things of the sad ugly sorrowful pressure of this place.

They seemed to stumble quite suddenly into a vast atrium, a strange, chain-laden device rotating noisily in this center, rising up, slamming down, and twisting. Beneath the sound, beneath sound itself, was the sense of a constant agonized whimper. As the device rose up, Temper caught sight of the tops of cells sitting in compartments.

"Maarku, is that...is that torturing prisoners?"

The Hunter glanced towards the device and shrugged dismissively. "Feels that way. Don't really know."

Belle sent her Ghost out to scan the device, all the while keeping her guard up. A Wizard swooped along in the distance. "It's Hive magic of some kind," she stated, "Whether causing the pain or being fueled by it, I can't tell. Both, perhaps."

"Fueled by it?"

"Hive rituals, Hive power, is fueled by pain and death."

Temper looked at the device in disgust. "So there isn't even a purpose to the torture."

"As I said, it fuels their spells."

"Which they use to cause more pain and death."

She cocked her head at him briefly before returning to being on guard. "It's all the same to them, perhaps, the act and the reason for it. Pain and death in the service of pain and death, forever."

"Enough philosophy," Maarku snapped. He was looking upwards. "That's our Warden for sure. Hardly ever thought about the thing before."

The giant inverted T of the construct above glided along the vast chamber, of which the atrium in which they stood was only a small part. Lights scanned along the rows and rows of cells embedded the walls. Looking for a potential jailbreak? Selecting victims for ritualized to route? Monitoring prisoner status? All of those things?

Something horrible and arcane?

"There," Belle said, looking in the direction of their goal, "Five stories up."

"No stairs of course, or resonant bridge things," Maarku said, summoning and dismissing his Ghost quickly. 

"So we climb," Temper said, looking up at the near-sheer walls. They'd have to use the roughened edges around the coffin-like cells as handholds and footholds.

"That we do." The humming chitter of a Hive patrol sounded nearby. Something had aroused their curiosity. "Now."


	4. Chapter 4

It was like climbing a skeleton, the bones long picked clean. A haunted skeleton, a hostile soul still lingering in its bones.

The tattered Darkness hung heavily in the air. There were no audible screams or babbling, but the sealed cells they clambered past seemed to reek of pain and madness. Temper's every instinct demanded that he should run far, far away.

He hauled himself up against a cell and stood on the narrow ledge in front of it. Only his heels fit; his toes hung out over a sheer drop. He leaned against the cell reluctantly as he caught his breath. He didn't like touching them. These weren't like the ones below. He didn't think there were Hive beasts in these.

Maarku was far ahead, while Belle was crawling up slowly, caught up in whatever it was that permeated the cells. Temper watched as she caught up to him, showing no signs of the weariness that permeated his own muscles. 

She hung near his feet, looking up at him with impatience in the tilt of her head. He took a deep breath and twisted around to begin his ascent again.

They probably wouldn't truly die, if they fell. But it always hurt. And Temper didn't want Yori vulnerable here, even with the Dreadnaught's dark powers broken and ruining. 

Staring over again was a large deterrent, too. It had been a long climb so far, and they were only three quarters of a way there.

"Here," Maarku called over the voice channel, "Look up."

Temper made sure he was solidly situated and did so. A small ledge looked overhead, easy to miss due to coloration and shape. This infernal ship was full of that. As he hauled himself towards it, Temper swore never to come back here. There were other shadows to chase away in this system. Leave this one to other Guardians.

Maarku reached down to help him up the ledge, and they both turned to help Belle. The Exo didn't bother to thank them, moving to the wall and then the edge. "Hmm. Leftover of an older design. The space must have been repurposed, or the one below expanded."

The Hunter chuffed. "I like the idea of Oryx worrying about his fung shui."

"It was likely done to hold more prisoners."

Maarku hid his eyepieces behind a hand.

Temper rolled his shoulders and stretched. “We should get moving. We have a way to go yet, and there’s still—”

Its presence hit them like a wave, first, focused malice rising from below. 

And then the Warden physically rose. The ornate geometric hull covered their entire view out to the chamber, making Temper feel like he was being buried alive. A yellowed evil light stared right at them, spearing them with its rage.

Guardians do not freeze in the face of evil, though, whatever the Warden was expecting.

Temper swapped to his machine gun and unleashed a torrent of bullets on it, as Belle laid into it with her fusion rifle. The Warden reeled backwards. Its hull wasn’t even chipped, but it must not have been expecting the attack.

Belle reloaded her weapon, shouting, “Spells are holding it together!”

Temper huffed as he ran out of ammo. “ _Light_! It’s always the Light…”

Maarku dropped his weapon and snarled something, blinking forward, once, twice, knife ablaze with Arc energy. He slammed into the hull, his knife plunging into it, the only thing keeping him from falling. “Give us a weak point!”

Belle stood stalk still for heartbeat, then three hollow diamond markers appeared on Temper’s HUD. “Burn the anchoring points. Destroy them and the spell comes undone.”

A resounding boom went out, followed by a wave of fuzzy energy emanating from the Warden’s eye. Temper and Belle staggered, their shields taking a pretty hard hit, and then bolts of energy began flickering from the Warden’s hull. Marrku swayed where he hung, managing to wrangle his momentum into a mad leap higher up on the hull, towards one of the anchor points.

Temper took a deep breath and leapt for one of the Warden’s arm-like extensions, boosting himself halfway so he could manage the jump. He hit hard, catching himself before he fell off the narrow surface. His shields sizzled as some of the fire redirected itself towards him.

The space in the room seemed to withdraw like the tide going out, and then another boom echoed throughout the room. Temper tucked himself into a ball as his shield power went down to a sliver, fire still raining down with that shrieking-yet-thunderous sound of Hive weaponry. No cover to hide behind and the enemy hammering down…

Two could play at that game.

Temper bolted for the anchor point on his HUD. The Warden ceased firing suddenly and whirled, sending Temper flailing in the air. He grasped at the thing’s arm desperately as it and nearly went flying in the other direction as it stopped suddenly.

It began rushing higher, its flat body close to the wall, trying to scrape the Guardians off. Temper clawed his way to relative safety and began crawling carefully towards the anchor point.

Not the victorious rush he envisioned, but it’d get the job done.

The warden flailed suddenly, its entire hull sending up a keening noise as it sank lower. “Got that one,” Belle said, sounding flatly tired. 

Temper stood cautiously. The Warden was listing backwards, and beginning to fire again.

He called upon the Hammer of Sol, feeling its devouring energy fill him as his world became engulfed in life-giving, all-consuming flame. He thrust his way forward in great bounds, to where the anchor point lay on the very end of the arm.

One shot at this. 

The Titan kicked into the air in a backflip, throwing the Hammer directly at the anchor point. It burst with the sound of glass breaking, a bright snap of yellow light, and the Warden shuddered, sinking faster now, adrift.

The booming wave went out again as Temper landed brutally on a narrow cell ledge. He turned to watch as the Warden began firing again.

Maarku, at the summit of its hull, slammed a grenade into the center of an elaborate geometric design and blinked a few times to land at Temper’s side just as it went off. 

The Warden screeched. Its lights faded. Its hull went dull, somehow, becoming lifeless stone, and began to crumble. 

“They always turn to ash,” Maarku said, breathing hard, “I wonder if it’s only malice that holds them together.”

“That is what their magic is,” Belle answered, “Above you.”

They both looked up to see Belle looking at them from not far at all, a hand extended. Maarku reached up and Temper pushed him from below, waiting a moment before taking their extended hands in turn.


	5. Chapter 5

Temper blinked rapidly as they pulled him up. Where the ledge before had just been an accident or leftover bit of architecture, this cavern was deliberately and elaborately carved. The sense of Darkness and horror here was worse, thicker, less shredded, less dead. What could be golden gilding marked some of the details out, with a great central V-like symbol on the wall.

Maarku peered closer at that, then slashed a great gash through it with his knife, Light scoring the bony material deep. “The symbol of Oryx. This was a special place to him, I’d bet. To do what, I don’t want to know.”

Temper lifted a hand to a elaborate spiked mechanism hanging from ceiling but didn’t touch it. “Torture.”

Belle turned in a slow wondrous circle. “Do you feel it? So many spells. Lore. Arcana. A lot of pain, some old and gone, some not.” She froze and pointed.

Their original target, the cell of Akallabeth, sat drunkenly upright near the chamber’s central dais, among a small grove of others. 

They moved forward cautiously. The cell looked to have sat there a long time, an unmoving monolith encrusted in the toothy growths of the hull. Belle cautiously reached towards its sealed door, laying a hand on it as if it might suddenly catch fire. 

“Strong wards…but dying. Stand back.” She stepped back herself, just barely and threw open her arms as if to embrace the blocky cell.

Temper felt her gather power. No light streamed in the air, just a kind of weight to the edges of everything and the movement of half-present currents beneath existence. 

Slowly, as if holding a heavy weight in each hand, Belle brought her hands together on the cell’s surface. She touched them together directly in front of her, then began tracing a lunatic pattern across its surface. Her arms shook as she moved, under some unseen immense strain.

As she reached the center again, she stumbled backwards. Both Maarku and Temper rushed to her side, dragging her back from the cell.

The wards must have lifted, because the capsule’s bony face crumbled into dust suddenly and silently.

Belle dropped her arms heavily and slumped, swaying. 

Something stirred in the dimness of the cell’s interior and began moving towards them. Temper raised his weapon. The Vanguard hadn’t been sure of the intel…

A blackened saurian claw wrapped around one edge of the opening almost gently and held for a moment. Another followed on the same side—and then another set on the other. 

The fireteam waited, the thing waited...

And then with a violent heave, the prisoner pulled itself into the light. Temper leapt back, and Maarku blinked back with an exhausted Belle in tow.

It shuffled forward on its six wing-claws, then stopped, beak tipped back like a panting bird. It was the color of candle wick burnt down to nothing. Feathers rustled softly, the odd echo of a dead shimmer in the sound. It looked like nothing so much as a vast raven or crow for the most part, excluding the six wings with their clawed hands and what looked like the bedraggled stub of a long trailing tail.

Temper had no idea if it was Taishibethi, but it sure as hell wasn’t Hive.

He looked to the others. Maarku was silent and grim, his weapon trained on the prisoner’s head. Belle seemed almost catatonic, leaning heavily on the Hunter. 

Time to take the lead then. 

“We are Guardians,” he said through his helmet’s speakers, “from the Last City on Earth, which is guarded by the Traveler. We have come in the name of the Light to free you, Akallabeth.” 

The prisoner raised itself up on its rearmost limbs, long frayed pinions flexing over its claws to make it seem bigger. The top two claws open wide to show off vicious fighting talons. He saw the ruins of the tail fan out, but it seemed pathetic and weak and instinctual. 

It wouldn’t be much of a fight, if it came to that. Temper grit his teeth and opted to take a risk. “Yori,” he whispered.

His Ghost popped up over his shoulder. Her eye flicked to him dubiously, but she moved to hover between him and the prisoner- keeping nearer to Temper. 

The prisoner cocked its head, peering at the Ghost. He could see the reflection of Yori’s shell in the faceted eyes. The wings slowly dropped down until they hung loosely off its body.

It opened its beak and uttered a broken trail of wondering sounds. It didn’t seem easy for it to speak. 

Temper moved forward. Yori zipped gratefully to his shoulder. “Akallabeth?” he asked.

It regarded him for a long moment, eye to eye. “Akallabeth,” the prisoner trilled quietly. Confirmation? A claw reached out, facing downward, the vicious talons tucked against the palm.

Temper slowly reached out to mimic the gesture, hoping that was the right thing to do. The claw dwarfed his hand. Akallabeth was massive on the whole; he bet the cell had been hellishly small for it. Especially if it was a flying creature like it seemed.

Akallabeth shut its eyes slowly and another claw touched the Titan’s shoulder gently. 

It-- he was dying. Temper could feel it in the touch.

“His Light is going out,” Yori said sadly, “It’s like a dead Ghost.”

“I do not think he will make it very far,” Belle said.

The eyes opened and the Taishibethi raised his head to look back over at Maarku and Belle. He looked back down to Temper, pleading in its movements.

Pleading for what? He was struck by the ragged pinions, the stump of a once-glorious tail, the burnt-out color…

He grasped the claw at his shoulder firmly, and somehow opened up his hold on his Light, offering it to Akallabeth.

He took it weakly, steadily, a warrior dying of thirst…

And for a single moment, they were linked mind-to-mind.

Akallabeth had once been great, the Talon of his people, prince-consort of the most glorious Emperor Raven, honored leader, trained as a warrior for art and tradition’s sake. For a century, the Taishibeth had been in a Golden Age of peace and beauty. The ancient traditions of warfare had been art and sport alone…

And then the Hive came. And his people died, and their wonders torn down, and She was Taken, and finally he had stood alone with his sons against Oryx in a barren canyon on their ruined homeworld. 

Oryx had slain them all, draining away their light with terrible laughter. She had been by his side, a twitching horror fading swiftly into the abomination’s will…and Oryx had pinned Akallabeth through the wing, chuckling. 

No Taking, will and memory stripped away, for Akallabeth. No sweet mercy of death for Akallabeth.

For Akallabeth, ages of confinement and torment, his innate Light stripped away, bones broken, feathers plucked, flesh burnt, over and over again for time beyond count.

For Akallabeth knew a name, and especially the direction its owner had gone. 

He had not surrendered it.

The link broke and Temper came to himself. 

Akallabeth blazed before him, hovering with great slow sweeps of his vast wings. Instead of that burnt out shade, his feathers were iridescent black. Faceted eyes whirled with revolving prismatic colors. His pinions shone with Solar Light, long and sweeping, and his tail was a brilliant fanning thing. 

Temper’s legs dropped beneath him, his Light utterly drained, just enough left to sustain his life. Long shining feathers brushed his shoulders and helmet. Akallabeth’s mind pulsed upon his own with each pass, images of dead wonders.

Light suddenly began leaking from the feathers, from between the feathers. 

Belle’s Ghost flickered around the Taishibethi, scanning him. “He’s fading,” it said in a deep masculine voice. 

Akallabeth inclined his head until it filled Temper’s entire HUD. “Taox,” he said, and something like a map flickered into Temper’s mind.

The alien drew back and snapped his wings closed suddenly. Light drifted from him in cloudy streams—and then there was only a cloud of black feathers, swiftly disintegrating. 

Temper tried to struggle to his feet, his Light returning to him. He blinked at the dissolving feathers. Was that a pinion stuck into the hull, still shining?

“That was a great gift,” Maarku said, coming over to lift him up on one side, “Stupid, too.”

Belle took his other side. “It nearly drained the Light that keeps you alive.” Together they helped him up and held him stable. 

“I noticed,” Temper said, “He’s gone. He was the last of them, and now they’re all gone.”

Maarku shrugged with a casualness that wasn’t reflected in his voice. “He died free. And less broken, to go by that display.”

“You couldn’t save him,” Belle added, a note of compassion in her icy voice, “Or not his life, anyway. The physical damage was too great. I suspect he only lived so long because Oryx wanted him to, and with him dead, only Akallabeth’s own will was all that held him together.”

“It’s still sad. All that’s left of them is what the Hive wrote down. And what he put in my head, I guess.” The cloud of dust that had been Akallabeth cleared, revealing the single glowing feather in full. Temper shrugged his teammates off and stumbled towards it. 

Maarku made a curious, cautioning grunt, but Temper reached for the pinion. It solidified as he touched it, saturated in Solar Light, an iridescent black hilt forming out of the dust still swirling, curving in an elegant feathery design. 

Temper seized it and pulled it out of the hull, holding up what was clearly now a sword blade. He ran a hand gently along its flat. An echo of the dead warrior rose in his mind.

Belle hurried over to take a scan of it, while Maarku whistled. “No repurposed piece of Darkness is that,” the Hunter said.

“A last act of war against the Hive,” Belle muttered, “A chance to conquer the Dark.” She chuckled light-heartedly. “A refutation of sword-logic!”

“Akallabeth,” Temper named it. He gently rested the sword along his back, replacing his heavy weapon. “We need to get going. The Hive is still here, and I’ve got a story to add to the Vanguard’s archives.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The release of the prisoner was the first thing I wrote for this story.


	6. Chapter 6

Temper sighed, enjoying the feel of the wind in his hair. It was good to be back in the Tower.

“Ikora wants to dissect you, you know,” Cayde said, coming up to lean against the guardrail. He whistled as he looked out. “I don’t get up to the Traveler’s Walk often enough. Quite a view. Nice and quiet when Saladin’s not around, too.”

Temper followed his gaze, seeing the vast mountains and circling birds of the wilds but also the vague ghosts of strange angles. “If Akllabeth changed me, it’s in ways that don’t make sense. I don’t think dissection would give many answers.”

The Hunter Vanguard got a wry look on his face. “To Ikora, that sort of thing’s just a challenge. You should hear her get in an explain-y mood.”

“What about you? And Zavala? What do you want to do with me?”

“We both think dissection would be a waste of a perfectly good Titan. We outvoted her, if you’re concerned.”

He wasn’t. Too tired. “Thanks.”

Cayde hummed. “Just so you know, I think you achieved a very great victory over the Hive…over all the Darkness. Someone, somewhere, in this nasty universe now truly remembers the glory of the Tasishibethi and the valor of Akallabeth.”

Temper shut his eyes, looking at the near-nonsensical memories of the Taishibethi in his mind’s eyes. Peace and wonder, Light streaming through the air, and singing, and children. Solar-bedecked wings flashing against the sky, thousands of them, dancing around grand elegant spires and star-webs. The universe blooming for them, the coming of a new age beyond the merely Golden…

He opened his eyes again to his world and humanity. “I think you’re right.”

Cayde nodded then looked over his shoulder. “Ah, see here comes someone to disturb your solitude. Got her access myself.” He slapped Temper on the shoulder, eying the sword Akallabeth on his back with envy before walking back to the Hall.

Temper turned to see the newcomer and grinned, his exhaustion evaporating as he rushed to sweep her up in his arms. “Amara,” he muttered against the Hunter’s blue neck. Yori had come out to dance in a drifting spiral with Amara’s Ghost.

She laughed and brushed her hands across his hair. He dropped her after a moment. She grinned at him, glowing teal eyes seeming even brighter than usual. “Hello, my amber-eyes. I hear you’ve had quite an adventure.”

He led her back to the railing. “I did at that.”

She eyed him critically. “You’re one piece at least.”

He touched the hilt at his shoulder. “A little more than that, maybe.”

She tucked herself against him, white mane of hair brushing his cheek. “I can feel the sword’s Light, like a living thing.”

He sighed and rested his chin upon her head. “It is the last feather of Akllabeth, the last of the Sun Ravens, the Taishibethi.”

“That’s a sad story, then.”

The ghostly overlay of Taishibethi-ness shifted gently in his sight, recalling joyous memories that were not his own. “Maybe, but not _only_ sad story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written to seem strike-like, a bit of an experiment. None of the original characters exist in game (that I'm aware of). It's been fun to write and I hope you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the recent Dreadnaught ride-along.


End file.
